The Reds' Ryan Ludwick, third from right, celebrates with teammates at home plate after his walk-off home run. / The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

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The It Factor made its debut Saturday. It looked like that electric line drive in the 10th inning that Ryan Ludwick hit into the second row in left field, that produced the Reds’ fifth win in a row. It also laid a second consecutive spirit crusher on the heathen St. Louis Cardinals, a fact that only heightened the glee of the 37,583 in attendance.

Loosely defined, the It Factor is a game or a series of games that seem to indicate whether a team has It in a certain season, or not. Baseball doesn’t always honor the It Factor, because across 162 games, It can be a moving target. Still, you know It when you see It.

Ludwick fell behind no balls and two strikes to Cardinals reliever Victor Marte before working a nine-pitch beauty of an at-bat. It ended with the shocking and triumphant sudden-ness of a 346-foot speed-of-light home run that fairly screamed It Factor.

“Everyone has a two-strike approach,’’ he was saying.

You shorten your swing, you guard the plate, you foul a few pitches off. Ludwick was looking for fastballs as he approached the plate, and he got two sliders. Strikes one and two. Thoughts turn to self preservation.

Ludwick finally saw a few fastballs, fouled them off. He took a few more, and another slider, to run the count full. In another season, one not so successful and compelling, Ludwick thinks fastball on three-and-two, and gets bent in half by a slider for strike three. In this season of taut and encouraging baseball in Cincinnati, he thinks slider, gets slider and sends slider into the seats.

Do you believe in the It Factor, I asked him afterward.

“The what?’’

“Games that tell you a team has It, whatever It is.’’

“I believe in momentum games,’’ Ludwick said. Which is about the same thing.

The good teams – or, rather the teams that end up being good – win lots of games the way the Reds won Saturday. The wins build on themselves and the attitude is such that no game is ever over. This is an invaluable intangible in a game that is played nearly every day for six months. Baseball isn’t the physical climb that football is. It is a mental Everest, though. The neck-up part of baseball isn’t simply about knowing when to take an extra base or not to groove an 0-2 fastball.

Ludwick is 34 years old. He came here in the offseason after struggling last year, first in San Diego, then in Pittsburgh. He battled here, too. “The first month and a half, I really stunk,’’ Ludwick said. He hit .194 in April and .224 in May, with five homers. He credits hitting coach Brook Jacoby, for settling him down. Jacoby reminded Ludwick he didn’t have to swing like King Kong, certainly not at Great American Small Park.

“Jake beat it into my head: You don’t have to swing as hard as possible,’’ Ludwick said. He has a thick head, apparently, because Jacoby’s advice didn’t take until last month. Ludwick hit six homers in June. “I just feel really good now,’’ he said. “It’s all confidence.’’

The It Factor is nothing without confidence.

The Reds have been teetering on the brink of It for awhile now. They’d rip off five in a row, edging near the boundaries of having It, then lose nearly as many. It’s a team that is more inconsistent than it should be. Some of that owes to the occasional lapse in concentration by players who should know better. Don’t assume a double, when a triple is possible. Tag up when you’re at second base, on a deep fly ball. Change your hitting approach when you have two strikes.

But the Reds don’t give in. “This team has fight,’’ Dusty Baker said. “We don’t always play great, or smart. But we fight.’’

They rallied to beat the Cardinals Friday night. Saturday, they went up 2-0, and lost that lead. In the crucial seventh inning, St. Louis had runners at second and third with nobody out, trailing just 2-1. The Cards scored just once more, on a safety squeeze bunt. That made possible Ludwick’s heroics.

You could say the It Factor is nothing more than good pitching. The five starters and the men who support them. Lately, the Reds pitching has been superb. Maybe that’s It.

Baseball is a game of cold, hard numbers. You are who your stats say you are. But it’s also a game of belief and confidence and breaks. It has a cosmic side, and if you don’t see that, you’re missing out. Seasons are long enough to assume personalities of their own. Some seasons, you have It. Others you don’t.

Ryan Ludwick gave the Reds a big shot of It Saturday. It had the look of permanence.